In late July, the untended, bean-shaped swimming pool at Ken Robinson's Flower Mound home — that is, the house in which he lives — was a stew pot of viscous green slime. On a stifling midsummer evening, when he walked out the back door to vacuum one of many layers of filth, the water level was…

Features Japan in East Asian History: From the Medieval Through the Premodern Periods The Ainu and Early Commerce in the Sea of Okhotsk Kikuchi Toshihiko Society [2012.02.28] Read in: 日本語 | 简体字 | 繁體字 | Русский | Centuries before the Sea of Okhotsk entered Japan’s collective awareness, the Ainu were…

Search Newsletter Magazine Politics Environment Media Crime and Justice Food Guns Dark Money Photos Investigations Podcasts Kevin Drum About Subscribe Donate The Frog of War When biologist Tyrone Hayes discovered that a top-selling herbicide messes with sex hormones, its manufacturer went into…

On Oct. 2, 2004, the container ship Ever Unique, sailing under a Panamanian flag from Yantai, China, berthed in the Port of Newark. As cranes unloaded the vessel’s shipping containers, which were filled with a variety of commercial goods, dockworkers singled out a container and placed it aboard a…

The freight train slowed through downtown and screeched to a stop in front of Luis Luna. He scrambled under a boxcar and climbed onto narrow beams that crisscrossed the undercarriage. He lay on his back, suspended 12 inches off the tracks. His nose almost touched the bottom of the boxcar. Seconds…

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen have an unusually devoted platonic relationship. Credit Photograph by Gabriele Stabile Asmugly enamored couple sit in a restaurant, their hands clasped as they fret over the menu. The chicken, for instance: can the waitress tell them a little bit about its…

She stoops to conquer: Whitney Cummings and Chris D’Elia as a battling couple on NBC’s “Whitney.” Credit Illustration by Jorge Arévalo Whitney Cummings may be this year’s most unnerving success, having launched two network sitcoms, an unheard-of achievement for a newcomer. On “Whitney,” which airs…

Not until I walked with Bruce Schneier toward the mass of people unloading their laptops did it occur to me that it might not be possible for us to hang around unnoticed near Reagan National Airport’s security line. Much as upscale restaurants hang mug shots of local food writers in their kitchens,…

Barnes and Noble: many ebook prices jumped between 30 and 50%. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images I want to offer a word of thanks to the American book publishing industry, or at least the traditional big companies that have dominated it in recent decades. They've helped me rediscover my local…

Transcripts of military interviews from the investigation into the Haditha massacre were found at this trailer in a junkyard in Baghdad, which specializes in selling trailers and office supplies left over from American military base closings. Andrea Bruce for The New York Times BAGHDAD — One by one,…

Outside Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico—10 miles from Guatemala. To reach the cages, we follow the main highway out of town, driving past soy, cocoa, banana and lustrous dark-green mango plantations thriving in the rich volcanic soil. Past the tiny village of Rio Florido the road degenerates into an…

America and Libya Edward Said In the extracts from David Stockman’s memoirs published on Monday 14 April by Newsweek , Reagan’s former Budget Director spoke of the mediocrities, charlatans and power-hungry politicos who cluster around the disturbingly vague and incompetent Great Communicator. For…

The Cain campaign bus makes a stop at a rally in Detroit on Oct. 21. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images As a math major, Herman Cain undoubtedly knew from the start that running for president, if you’re already rich and your main interest is in enhancing your revenue stream, makes no sense as a career move.…

Minor issues with it aside, Dark Souls remains one of the most intense, addictive, and challenging games released in 2011. To get to the bottom of this difficult game's surprise success, I talked to From Software's Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Dark Souls. With Dark Souls it seems like you…

Diary Ghaith Abdul-Ahad After three years of drought thousands of colourful tents made with sticks and branches wrapped in plastic sheets and bits of cloth have sprung up among Mogadishu’s destroyed buildings. Over the summer and early autumn tens of thousands of starving Somalis entered the city.…

Search Newsletter Magazine Politics Environment Media Crime and Justice Food Guns Dark Money Photos Investigations Podcasts Kevin Drum About Subscribe Donate The Cruelest Show on Earth Bullhooks. Whippings. Electric shocks. Three-day train rides without breaks. Our yearlong investigation rips the…

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met…

A Snapshot of Some Bestselling YA on Display in a Japanese Bookstore If you’ve ever had a chance to talk with me or read my Twitter messages in a given week, you probably are already very aware of my love for Japanese fiction. If I’m not tweeting out a book recommendation, I’m reading the soon to be…

Diary Jenny Diski In 1959, Dr Milton Rokeach, a social psychologist, received a research grant to bring together three psychotic, institutionalised patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, in order to make a two and a half year study of them. Rokeach specialised in belief systems: how it is…

When Jessica* was selected as Student of the Year in eighth grade, she should have celebrated this goldest of gold stars. Instead, she slammed doors, bawled her eyes out and let her parents know she would hate them for the rest of her life. What they were doing to her wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair .…

MINOT, ND -- At 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2010, Iraq veteran Brock Savelkoul decided it was time to die. He lurched from his black Tacoma pickup truck, gripping a 9-mm pistol. In front of him, a half dozen law enforcement officers crouched behind patrol cars with their weapons drawn. They had…

The Project On Student Debt estimates that the average college senior in 2009 graduated with $24,000 in outstanding loans. Last August, student loans surpassed credit cards as the nation’s single largest source of debt, edging ever closer to $1 trillion. Yet for all the moralizing about American…

The Awl Be less stupid. The Awl Be less stupid.

At last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a student from the group Youth for Western Civilization at Liberty University asked members of a panel titled “The Shari’ah Challenge to the West”: “Are we going to see a rise of Islamic Europe, and America just sits there on its own……

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This is an expanded version of the text that appears in the August 2007 Vanity Fair. The Story of D'oh: Lisa, Homer, Bart, Marge, and Maggie Simpson. View our picks for the 10 best Simpsons episodes ever. All illustrations Fox/Photofest. In January 1992, during a campaign stop at a gathering of the…

For Army Spc. Brushaun Anderson, there was no escaping his torment. The senior noncommissioned officers who ruled his life at a remote patrol base in Iraq ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag because they said he was “dirty.” They forced him to perform excessive physical exercises in his body…

Credit Photograph by Jason Edwards / National Geographic The Trailhead Queen was dead. At first, there was no overt sign that her long life was ending: no fever, no spasms, no farewells. She simply sat on the floor of the royal chamber and died. As in life, her body was prone and immobile, her legs…